In the Shadows

I have never been one of those people who has understood astronomy, even though I have forever been fascinated by it. You might say that I am in the dark about most things astronomical.

We recently had a lunar eclipse. Many people say they know what a lunar eclipse is, but then struggle to explain what "it" is exactly, myself included. So here goes. Within a matter of minutes, the moon slips quietly into the earth's shadow and then back out again. For those of us who were willing to get up at an ungodly hour of the night, we were treated to a spectacular view of the cogs of our universe in action.

One important aspect of any eclipse relates to shadows. It isn't something that comes up in most conversations, but objects have two types of shadows: umbra and penumbra. Umbra is the complete shadow of an opaque body. This is where the light from the source of illumination is completely cut off. Penumbra is the partial shadow.

If you stand right smack behind something bigger than you that completely blocks the source of light, you would be in the darkest part of the shadow, the umbra. If you edge out just a ways, you are essentially half-in and half-out, or in the penumbra.

I know. On first read this may still be confusing. I felt the same way when the topic was introduced in my painting class. How is it that we do not learn about this in school? Or, perhaps I did and should be embarrassed that I, for one, failed to learn. When painting still lifes, we learn about these two types of shadows. Shadows and the contrast between light and dark are important, if not the most critical aspect of painting. Oddly enough, if you do shadows wrong, the painting will not look real. So, it seems that this lies somewhere in our understanding that is less than conscious, perhaps in the penumbra of our awareness.

To further describe the metaphor relating shadows to awareness, there are things we know (illuminated), there are things we know we don't know (penumbra) and then there are the things we do not even know that we don't know (umbra).

Another loose analogy also came to mind. We have a one year old puppy named Sophie. We try to keep track of her when she is outside so that she doesn't bark, eat twigs and rocks or dig up our yard. When she is outside, we can look out a window and sometimes, we see her. However, there is a "dark" side to the house where we cannot see her at all. This seems to be her spot. This is the umbra.

After a long winter, Sophie decided to go exploring into our neighbor's yard. Before the snow melted, her explorations were confined to a trail around the back yard tromped out in the deep snow. So, without a physical border of snow to keep her inside the yard, she has recently become more adventurous. Even though we have an electronic fence we often use a training collar instead to train her not to dig in the grass. Today, hiding in the umbra and not having the electronic fence collar on to warn her, she slipped over the line without our knowing.

My husband retrieved her after the neighbor called. We live close enough to a busy highway that our dog running loose is a frightening experience. Once inside the house we reprimanded her and gave her a time-out, which means she sits in her crate for a few minutes. As we were feeling all sorts of emotions, including anger, fear, sadness and relief, we talked about how long you stay mad at a dog. It seems that our consensus was that this should be only to the point where being mad no longer served its purpose. That point, however, was ill defined. There is no manual to guide us. It clearly would not extend beyond some number of minutes into hours.

And I wondered if we disregard this understanding with each other as humans. We stay angry and punish each other well past the point our anger serves any purpose. In fact, sometimes they are unaware of our anger. Or, as a result of our lingering anger they themselves become mad at us, confusing the issue. While we cannot rationalize with a dog and explain the implications of their actions and the emotional effects it has upon us, we can quite easily with each other, yet often choose not to.

So while we are in our deepest anger we remain inside our own umbra. Yet a few steps away we could come into the penumbra. The natural forces of our emotional universe are upset when we choose to hide behind the object of our anger unmovable. We do not slip into the penumbra, umbra and back out again as we see occur in the natural world. We hide behind the cause and force others into the darkness of our anger, setting off all manner of collisions.

While for today, this lesson may be learned and my awareness expanded, I am certain that the next time I am angry that things will become less clear once again and I will lose my way out of the umbra of my anger. I resolve to revisit the next eclipse so that the lesson may be repeated.

The lunar eclipse is different from other eclipses in that far more people can view the eclipse. All you have to be is on the night side of the earth and have a clear view of the moon. In other words, you just have to be in the dark. And, you just have to take the time to look out beyond yourself for a few precious minutes, sometimes when it may seem the most inconvenient. And then for a treasured moment, we remember how small we are in relation to the universe and how good it is to be human.

Hurry Up, Slow Down

Life is often lived straddling opposites. We learn to appreciate things most when we experience the thing's inverse. Some of these are only 21st century problems. We discover that we most appreciate food when we are truly hungry, we learn that resting is best after hard work and those of us who have hard winters appreciate the summers far more than those who have moderate weather all year round. 

How we experience time also has opposites. Tedious, boring or painful events we want to go fast, yet they go slow. And our most looked forward to moments are over before we know it. Vacations are notable examples that follow this rule. A vacation planned appears like a beacon on the horizon that we steer towards knowing the thought of it will lighten our dreary day. Then, when the day finally arrives to start our most anticipated vacation, we want to reverse time or at least to slow things down considerably so that we can savor every moment. In reality, it seems that the best option in overcoming this perpetual "Hurry Up, Slow Down" teeter totter, is to keep our thoughts in the present moment, no matter what it is we might be doing. 

This past winter in Minnesota, Minnesotans already accustomed to bitter winters wanted to heave themselves somehow into the future, leapfrogging the endless subzero temperatures to get to what we anticipate most in Minnesota: The Thaw. In my optimism of an early spring, I invited friends from Denver to visit at the end of March, certainly an "iffy" time of year when a big snowstorm is still completely plausible. But, as if I had some insight into our weather, the weekend turned out to be perfection. 

The weekend was everything we had hoped for. It was filled with delightful conversation, spectacular food (thanks to my husband who was chef for the weekend) and the perfect weather to enjoy our various activities. On the final day of their visit and in gorgeous weather, we walked around the Walker Arts Center, the Sculpture Garden, Loring Park and even walked into downtown Minneapolis for a bite to eat. At the very end of the visit that day, we parked ourselves at a picnic table in Minnehaha Park to sit and relax. We were beat. It had been a long day, filled with lots to see and lots of ground that we had covered by foot. 

We were so weary that we found ourselves not such good company, instead only yearning for a minute or two to close our eyes. Yet, I found myself watching the clock,  timing our stay at the park perfectly in order to fill the time before I would take them to the airport. According to my watch, we would need to sit and talk for another twenty minutes before I would take them to the airport, which was just a short drive away.  

At last, one of my friend's said, "You know, you can take us to the airport any time." 

It was as if this thought had not occurred to me. It wasn't my responsibility to fill every waking moment of my guest's time up until the time of their departure. But, here with each of us so tired we could barely keep our eyes open, I had not considered what was most practical and perhaps even most enjoyable for each of us at the moment. 

I had returned to the "Hurry up" frame of mind yet again. In hindsight, I wonder if all vacations end this way. We are tired of living out of a suitcase, the kids are getting on our nerves, too much time with siblings or other relatives and we crave alone time once again and yearn to sleep back in our own beds.  

So taking my friend's suggestion, I made our way back out of the winding roads to the airport. We said our final goodbyes and I got home in time to take a nap with my husband and our sweet puppy who takes naps with us before a delightful dinner of left-overs. With that, I was once again in the sweet-spot of living in the moment.